» Fri Feb 01, 2013 6:13 am Open World PvP:
They have said that there will be reserved areas in each province, that are not yet developed/locked out for future expansions. For this reason I also believe that these expansions could bring changes to the province of Cyrodiil itself. War can realistically take place in other provinces, why should all factions only be able to do battle in a center province just to be crowned Emperor. In an actual battle, a general wouldn't throw away precious troops, and instead would go after whichever enemy was needed to be taken down within their own province, not Cyrodiil. While this does bring up the whole faction lock debate, I'm more so referring to this because in expansions, there's potential for Cyrodiil to change shape, or other factions having conquered more land within another faction's territory, and thus changing both the map, and the areas you can PvP in. I'm not arguing for or against the ability to directly go into someone's province and kill anyone in sight, just a potential map that isn't a landlocked PvP zone that is the exact same as Cyrodiil is in Oblivion. There was no Emperor, no Empire, why would Cyrodiil have the exact same borders, or every other province for that reason.
With that though, everything about an open territory full of PvP has a HUGE amount of potential, and can cover even some of the smaller scale PvP activities that many enjoy, so until it's released I can't really whine about how it is, but I can say there is potential everywhere. There can be smaller zones that act as battlegrounds like in WoW and could have a capture the flag objective. Maybe the flag can be a sweetroll, A set of different colored artifacts etc. I also don't see why there can't be an area dedicated to an Oblivion arena like setting. Is that not the ultimate potential for a WoW-like arena with 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 battles while still being very much so lore friendly, and with the potential to be unique in its own way?
Or even 1v1 tournaments where the winner becomes the Grand Champion, or 1v1 battles at your leisure and whoever has the highest score is the current Grand Champion?
It could be staged in Cyrodiil so all you "same scenery same missions same old battlefield" could have some sort of diversity. It could be an instance inside Cyrodiil but in a neutral area or an area accessable through teleportations and such. Have they confirmed that EVERY area within Cyrodiil is an area in which you can beat the snott out of anyone who crosses your path? They said there's what a max of 200 people that could be fighting each other in a partcular area. That can't be referring to the whole of Cyrodiil right? That means there's a good potential for different segments within Cyrodiil deginated for different activities, some of which could be like WoW style battlegrounds. It's all speculation at this point which is extremely annoying that we haven't gotten some juicy detail in which we could discuss endlessly about, but some things are better left a secret until Beta I guess.
Classes:
In an MMO style game it's almost impossible to remove classes entirely for balance reasons, which is disappointing but acceptable. The amount of information we've received as to how much we can actually customize our classes is pretty astonishing for a MMO. I can think of a couple MMOs off the top of my head that have such customization, but the large population generic MMOs haven't broken away from the cycle yet. Like in all TES games I could never stick to just one character/class, I always had to do them all in my own way. If that carries over into TESO, not only will they have me chained to a game I can't stop paying for, but the customization possible will make it extremely fun. I'm afraid that this whole area could go wrong, and with every hot topic within TESO, there's something that can go wrong. In an ideal TESO I'll be throwing my money at them, if done wrong I'll tire of it all pretty fast.
The tactics + group play:
Being able to add fire to your arrows or have your sword swing fireballs is a hilariously good idea. If implemented well and in an easy way for people to understand, I don't think there will be an issue of newer players not knowing what they're doing. Sure the first time you might have to direct them as to what ability you should be using and at what times, but overall I think this will be a pretty easy concept to grab with a 8 slot action bar.
Graphics + Scenery:
By far one of the best things in a TES game is the ability to do whatever you wanted. Having the same scenery for nostalgia purposes will greatly increase the fun factor of this MMO. On top of that, from the graphics I've seen they will only compliment all these other areas and enhance gameplay to a whole new level. Like with everything since the game is still in development, if done wrong, it could be a make or break it for me, but when there are already daedric ruins confirmed, and the same old Morrowind factions more than likely lingering around, I have no reason to believe they'll mess that part up. If the graphics are at least as good as the videos then I'm already satisfied; we can't have Skyrim like graphics everywhere, I can only imagine the work needing to be put into it.
Leveled areas/zones:
This was one of my favorite things about WoW, spending time as a lowbie in a creepy forest area at night, for maybe a week in time. When leveling again the same atmosphere and leveled zones brings back a ton of nostalgia. Morrowind has swampy areas, volcanic areas, snowy areas, grassy plains, all on Vvardenfell, not even on the mainland. There's a huge amount of potential for each area to be drastically different depending on the level zone, which in turn could really add to the leveled zones. Once again, it's something with a lot of potential, but something that could easily go wrong, which scares me.
Expansions:
I'll end this wall of text with an idea on expansions. With WoW there was the outlands, northrend etc. areas that could be added after the initial release. With TESO unless they're planning on going to the outer realms, there's only a few areas I can think of that they can work around: 1. First what I mentioned earlier, different factions could gain power over certain areas and it could be one faction's time to shine, or another's glory of revenge. Land doesn't need to be static, and could be ever changing depending on the expansion. You could even have some sort of world domination scheme where skrimishes near an enemiy's province could successfully start to take away from that enemy's land. I'm not really optimistic that such a thing is going to happen, but there's always the potential. 2. There's going to be areas not yet accessable upon release and in vannila TESO. There will be some new areas that will be opened during expansions, and potential within those areas. 3. Daedric Princes, I'm sure you all know where I'm going with this. There's a whole plain of oblivion for each prince, and an expansion could involve that daedric prince's realm, and potentially throw the world into chaos. Mehrunes Dagon, do I need to say anymore? Expansions in Oblivion like the shivering Isles could easily be workable areas within expansions.
Conclusion: There is so much potential, but so much room for them to fail. If they succeed in making the most crucial factors enjoyable, and then are free to go lore mode with their expansions and go crazy, I couldn't be happier. If PvP is very static, and the potential within the open battleground isn't exploited to its full potential, this game could die fast. I'm so excited for this game, but at the same time so fearful it won't turn out to be even half of what I envision it to be.
Are my suggestions completely stupid? Will they never see entrance into the game, and what is the likelihood of it? Are there obvious flaws in some of my ideas? Is there content I'm not yet aware of that slaps whatever I just said in the face? If there's anything you want to add/correct me on, go ahead, I look forward to my fairy tale of a perfect TESO to be broken.
